Podcast
Excellence Foresight with Nancy Nouaimeh
Hosted by Nancy Nouaimeh · EN
Welcome to Excellence Foresight
Conversations that shape the future of excellence and leadership
Let’s be real - excellence doesn’t just “happen.” It’s built, nurtured, and sometimes wrestled into place. In a world that’s constantly shifting, leaders and teams need more than just good intentions, they need strategies that actually work.
That’s exactly what we bring to the table. Each episode is packed with real-world insights, practical takeaways, and conversations with industry pros who’ve been there, done that, and have the stories to prove it. I’ll also sprinkle in lessons from my 25 years of experience working across diverse, multicultural settings—because trust me, I’ve seen it all.
So, if you’re ready to drop the guesswork and fast-track your way to excellence, you’re in the right place. Excellence Foresight is here to make the journey insightful, engaging, and maybe even a little fun.
Tune in, get inspired, and let’s build something great together.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Excellence Under Pressure: What Organizations Reveal When It Really Matters with Gerard Murphy
4w ago00:27:33Tap to summarizePressure does not make an organization better or worse. It exposes what is already there. In this episode I sit down with Gerard Murphy, drawing on decades of policing, safeguarding, crisis leadership, and international security advisory work, to get brutally practical about organizational maturity and excellence under pressure. When the environment turns time critical and reputationally sensitive, do you get clearer or do you get busier, noisier, and less honest?We dig into the hidden mechanics that separate “looks mature” from “is mature”: whether uncomfortable information can travel upward without being softened, how leaders behave when they are challenged, and why accountability clarity reduces hesitation when risk is climbing. Gerard explains why safeguarding reveals true values more reliably than performance matrices or dashboards, because it forces a choice between compliance theater and real protection. We also unpack protective governance, the kind that asks who is at risk, what you are not seeing, and where gaps are forming before harm occurs.Psychological safety shows up here as a core risk control, not a soft cultural nice-to-have. If people cannot question the prevailing narrative or admit uncertainty, early warning signs disappear and teams can charge forward with a coherent but flawed story. We close with a hard reflection for leaders: don’t ask whether your organization is mature, ask who it becomes when the pressure is on. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review with the one signal you want your organization to hear sooner.Send us Fan Mail
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What it Takes to Support People and Performance in a Crisis with Nancy Nouaimeh
Apr 800:12:05Tap to summarizeCrisis doesn’t show up as a calendar invite. It seeps into tone, silence, rushed decisions, and the moment your team stops asking hard questions. I’m Nancy Nouaimeh, and I’m speaking directly to leaders navigating disruption not only in markets and systems, but inside themselves. When uncertainty rises, it’s tempting to reach for tighter controls and faster answers. But crisis doesn’t travel through governance slides. It travels through people, and people feel before they comply.We get honest about the inner experience of leadership in crisis: the fear of getting it wrong, the pressure to look composed, the loneliness of responsibility, and the hidden cost of suppressing emotion. What we hold down internally doesn’t stay private; the organization absorbs it. That’s why resilient leadership isn’t endurance or pushing through. It’s integration. It’s pausing before reacting, listening without defending, regulating your nervous system under stress, and leading with presence. Human-centric leadership also means protecting energy, setting boundaries, and treating rest and sustainability as part of the job so clarity can return.I also share a high-stakes project story that reshaped my view of organizational trust and psychological safety: when leaders buffer pressure, teams don’t shut down, they step up. From there, we move from reaction to foresight leadership, where foresight isn’t prediction, it’s perception. Staying human helps us sense burnout, resistance, and cultural fractures early, and build real adaptability. If you care about crisis leadership, emotional intelligence, resilience, and future-ready organizations, you’ll leave with three practical takeaways and one final question to reflect on. Subscribe, share this with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.Send us Fan Mail
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Why HR Skips the One Step That Could Fix Engagement with Kelly Price
Mar 800:40:08Tap to summarizeRecognition isn’t a perk; it’s a system signal. We sit down with Kelly Price, founder of ThriveHR, to unpack why so many companies chase “engagement” while skipping the first principle: measure how work truly happens, then align rewards, roles, and routines to that reality. Kelly blends hospitality, psychology, and hard‑won HR experience to show how culture improves when operations and people practices stop living in separate worlds.We start with the big blind spot: leaders try to fix feelings without fixing the system. Kelly explains how an HR audit stabilizes compliance risk and sets a baseline for smarter change, then makes the case for simple, disciplined metrics like ENPS run quarterly and sliced by manager, tenure, and team. Numbers alone aren’t enough, so we dig into one‑on‑ones that employees own, turning meetings into real feedback loops and early-warning systems for friction. From there, we tackle “right people, right seat,” clear job design, and the COO and HR partnership that removes blockers, sequences work correctly, and invites the frontline into problem solving.AI gets a reality check. Drafts and templates help, but outsourcing judgment creates false confidence. Kelly shares why business fluency, not dashboards, earns HR a seat at the table, and how to give executives candid, respectful perspectives that actually change behavior. We also get specific about incentives: when values say collaboration but comp pays for solo wins, trust dies. Opaque bonus plans, golden handcuffs, and celebrating the brilliant jerk all erode engagement. The fixes are clarity, transparency, targeted recognition, and the courage to change plans when outcomes show they’re wrong.By the end, you’ll have a practical blueprint: audit first, define how the business makes money, align incentives with desired behaviors, upgrade meetings, measure engagement simply and often, and rebuild onboarding so people know expectations, goals, and leadership style from day one. Subscribe, share with a leader who needs a systems lens on HR, and leave a review with one misaligned signal you plan to change next.Send us Fan Mail
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How to lead beyond your comfort zone with Marc Monteil
Feb 1100:31:49Tap to summarizeExcellence doesn’t live in a slide deck; it shows up when the stakes are high and the ground is unfamiliar. That’s why we invited Mark Monteil, who left a successful manufacturing career to lead in New Caledonia’s mining sector, to unpack what changes when your decisions echo for years and people’s safety depends on your culture. The story starts with a courageous pivot: trading autopilot for responsibility. From there, it turns into a field guide for leaders who want to build trust in complex, high‑risk environments.We dig into the practices that travel across industries, clear standards, daily discipline, and going to the field, while recognizing what must be translated to local context. Mark explains why the first step in transformation isn’t optimization but reconnection: introducing yourself to tribes, unions, and mayors; honoring ceremonies; and listening before fixing. He reframes emotional intelligence as hard protection, the difference between near‑miss and catastrophe, and shares prompts that surface unspoken risks. You’ll hear how psychological safety, humility, and systems thinking create the conditions for continuous improvement that actually lasts.Along the way, we talk about avoiding the trap of labels. Rather than launching another program, Mark embodies timeless principles without the baggage of acronyms. We explore the tension between quarterly results and culture that compounds over years, and we map a path that blends quick wins with long‑term trust. Mark also opens up about the personal routines, meditation, running, and intentional presence that help him slow down, adjust speed, and bring people with him.If you’re ready to lead closer to reality, fill your calendar with field time, and choose courage over comfort, this conversation is your cue. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs the nudge, and leave a review with the one behavior you’ll change this week.Send us Fan Mail
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Lead With Alignment And Balance with Nancy Nouaimeh
Jan 800:15:26Tap to summarizeResults don’t slip because your strategy is fuzzy. They slip because daily behavior doesn’t match what the strategy demands. We kick off 2026 by drawing a hard line between intent and action and by showing how to design systems that make the right behaviors obvious, repeatable, and resilient under pressure. The heart of the conversation is True North—five non‑negotiable outcomes tied to clear principles—and the practical work of turning that clarity into coherent execution.We share a field story from a mid‑sized manufacturer where leaders were stuck in firefighting despite a clean strategy and a PMO. Instead of more KPIs, we mapped systems to behaviors, made expectations visible through Key Behavioral Indicators, and anchored leader standard work and tiered huddles. The results: 40% fewer escalations in 12 weeks, faster decisions, and leaders with time to manage the system rather than react to it. The lesson is simple and repeatable: systems should shape behavior, and behavior should drive outcomes.You’ll also hear a deep dive into the Aligned and Balance leadership model, influenced by the Shingo approach. Alignment reduces noise with ambition, explicit leadership expectations, integrated systems, governance for flow, and visible principles. Balance reduces fatigue with steady behavioral rhythms, accountability without blame, learning loops, adaptive capacity, normalized improvement, capacity and energy stewardship, and real engagement. Then we outline a simple 2026 operating model: start with strategy, design systems, define behaviors, measure outcomes, and close the loop with learning. If you’re carrying too many initiatives and seeing too little impact, this is your roadmap to focus, flow, and sustained performance.If this sparked reflection, subscribe, share it with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with your top five outcomes for 2026. Your input shapes where we go next.Send us Fan Mail
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Implementation Science in Action: Making Change Practical for Leaders with Julia Moore
Dec 800:29:07Tap to summarizeChange rarely fails because of bad strategy; it fails because execution collides with human reality. We sit down with Julia Moore from the Center for Implementation to unpack how leaders can swap “train and pray” for practical, evidence-informed strategies that people will actually use. From hospitals to schools to public health, Julia shows how to design for behavior, not just broadcast information.We start by reframing the work: define the thing you’re implementing, identify everyone involved, and get precise about what must change in daily behavior. Then we diagnose barriers and facilitators at the individual, organizational, and system levels, mapping them to behavior science so strategy selection isn’t a guess. Julia opens her toolkit—the free Strategies Tool that links barriers to actions, and Map to Adapt, a process that helps teams decide when to tailor, when to pause, and when to pivot while protecting what matters most.The conversation moves into leadership as five core functions: understand, connect, inspire, enable, and transform. We talk about why authority no longer carries change, how to build trust and navigate power dynamics, and why storytelling outperforms slide decks when you need hearts to move before metrics improve. Julia also bridges quality improvement and implementation science, showing how combining cycles and measures with barrier-driven strategy and adaptation planning accelerates real-world results.If you’re a leader craving clarity and traction, you’ll leave with a practical path: start with self-awareness, equip your team with the right skills and resources, and remove the friction that blocks progress. Grab the free mini course Inspiring Change 2.0, share this episode with a colleague who leads change, and leave a review with one barrier you’re committed to tackling next.Send us Fan Mail
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Riding Toward Excellence: Culture, Speed & Team Dynamics- A cyclist’s view on organizational flow and the Shingo Model With Peter Barnett
Nov 800:34:01Tap to summarizeA peloton moves faster than any lone rider, not by heroics but by trust, timing, and the quiet work no one sees. That same dynamic powers great organizations. We sit down with Peter Barnett, director of executive education at the Shingo Institute, to trace how cycling’s paceline, Team Sky's marginal gains, and principle-driven leadership create cultures that endure pressure and win the long game.Peter shares how small 1% improvements compound into big results, lighter tires, better seats, smarter sleep, then links those choices to Shingo principles like seek perfection, focus on process, and respect every individual. We dig into why many companies chase big-bang transformations and then snap back under stress, and how to build constancy of purpose instead: measure weak points, test small changes, and make learning safe. The conversation goes deep on team dynamics too: the unsung domestiques who make podiums possible, and how to elevate the vital middle of your organization with clear intent, real-time information, and autonomy.We also confront leadership habits that stall culture: hiring for presence over humility, swapping frameworks to leave a mark, and neglecting the basics that underpin every “breakthrough.” Peter’s stories, from shadow boards to a costly mistake turned lesson, offer sharp, practical guidance. If you’re ready to move beyond star-performer worship and build flow, trust, and shared purpose, this ride is for you.Subscribe for more purpose-led leadership insights, share this episode with a teammate who sets the pace, and leave a review to tell us the next hill you want to climb together.Send us Fan Mail
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Scaling Smart: Excellence through Systems, Innovation, and Grit with Jennifer Yeh
Oct 800:27:27Tap to summarizeWhat happens when system thinking meets creative entrepreneurship? Jennifer Yeh's remarkable journey offers a masterclass in lean, strategic scaling. In just one year, she grew her photography platform Shoot from $800,000 to $10.1 million with a team of only 4-5 people, all while raising three children as a single mom.The secret to this extraordinary growth lies in Jennifer's methodical approach to business processes. By meticulously documenting workflows, she uncovered inefficiencies, created opportunities for automation, and most importantly, empowered her team to think independently. "When we write things down," Jennifer explains, "it's very easy for us to see points of inefficiencies." This process-oriented mindset transformed potential bottlenecks into pathways for expansion.Rather than viewing COVID-19 as an obstacle, Jennifer recognized it as an opportunity. When outdoor photo shoots became one of the few safe activities available, her team pivoted their photographer onboarding from in-person to virtual—reducing the time to expand into new cities from a week to just one day. This adaptability exemplifies her philosophy: "One of the things we're most scared of is getting too comfortable and getting stuck in the same way of doing things."Jennifer's insights on team building are particularly valuable for founders seeking sustainable growth. She prioritizes shared values and problem-solving abilities over specific technical skills, noting, "If you have those main components, you can pretty much learn almost anything." This approach creates a cohesive culture where feedback flows freely and innovation thrives.For entrepreneurs navigating today's landscape, Jennifer emphasizes hands-on experience with every aspect of your business, staying current with AI advancements, and maintaining self-awareness about your strengths and weaknesses. Her morning routine- waking at 5:30 AM for strategic planning- provides a template for maintaining focus amid competing demands.Connect with Jennifer on Instagram @ShoottPhotos or visit shoott.com to explore how her system thinking approach might transform your own venture.Send us Fan Mail
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The Ten Permissions: A Framework for Adaptive Leadership with Jillian Reilly
Sep 800:29:16Tap to summarizeWhat would happen if you gave yourself permission to adapt, create, and lead differently in our disruptive world? Jillian Reilly discovered the answer while tackling the world's largest HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe. Amid this immense social challenge, she recognized that while she could provide tools and resources, the one thing she couldn't give people was permission, the internal authorization to change their lives. This profound insight launched her twenty-year exploration into how self-permission shapes our capacity for meaningful transformation.In this thought-provoking conversation, Jillian introduces us to her forthcoming book, "The Ten Permissions," presenting a framework that challenges conventional approaches to change. She reveals why the permission "to think small and forget about the future" might be exactly what change-makers need, embracing direction over destination in a world where long-term visibility has become nearly impossible. Similarly, her permission to "make believe" invites us to reclaim our creative capacities, acknowledging that in an AI-dominated future, our uniquely human ability to create will become our most valuable asset.Jillian articulates how organizational systems often preserve the status quo rather than enabling adaptation. The solution? Engineering for responsiveness through continuous small experiments instead of waiting for major failures to trigger change. Perhaps most challenging for established leaders is her call to become "more explorer and less executive" – comfortable saying "I don't know" while developing stronger pattern recognition and question-asking capabilities.As we navigate unprecedented disruption in our social systems, Rilley suggests the most radical permission might be to "be willful" – reconnecting with our desires and intentions after generations of suppressing them for security. This reconnection, she believes, could lead not just to better adaptation but to more fulfilling participation in a rapidly transforming world.Pre-order "The Ten Permissions" (releasing September 16th) and discover how giving yourself permission might be the key to thriving in uncertainty. What permission will you give yourself today?Send us Fan Mail
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Building Learning Capabilities with Sabrina Malter
Aug 800:26:59Tap to summarizeWhat truly separates exceptional organizations from the rest? It's not just about having the right processes or the best talent, it's about creating environments where learning flourishes at every level. Sabrina Malter, a seasoned business coach with over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, joins us to explore how bringing learning to life transforms organizations from the inside out.Sabrina shares the journey of her recently published book on building learning cultures, which evolved from a simple collection of workshop materials into a comprehensive guide filled with case studies and practical tools. She reveals the three essential foundations of organizational learning: developing an open, curious attitude; fostering psychological safety; and building practical learning capabilities through iterative cycles of hypothesis, action, and reflection.What makes this conversation particularly valuable is the clear connection Sabrina draws between learning and organizational excellence. As she explains, "They are so closely connected that I would nearly say sometimes they are really the same." Excellence today requires different capabilities than excellence tomorrow, making continuous learning essential for sustainable success.Through compelling case studies, Sabrina illustrates how organizations implement personalized learning approaches and grassroots initiatives that empower employees to take ownership of their development. She emphasizes the crucial role leaders play in modeling learning behaviors and creating environments where people feel encouraged to experiment and grow.Whether you're looking to transform your organization's approach to learning or seeking to enhance your own learning capabilities, this episode offers actionable insights and a powerful reminder that the path to excellence unfolds through continuous learning. As Sabrina beautifully puts it, "As a learner, the way unfolds right under your feet."Ready to bring learning to life in your organization? Listen now and discover how to build a culture that sustains excellence through continuous growth and development.Send us Fan Mail
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